Appendix 4 - The Laws of Health

William A Alcott

Comment – For 10 people to use 25 pounds would mean each would average 3 grams a day of sodium which could be regarded as an excessive amount. But from this extreme case, it does not appear that baking powder would cause an overdose of sodium.

Score – Unverified

Why 132 – Baking Powder 1 (What 124) Baking powder “devitalizes” the blood.

Page 165-861 - "Of the two hundred thousand children that die in the United States every year, under ten years of age, I have little doubt that one half .... would survive, but for the influence of saleratus. .... it disinfibrates or devitalizes the blood,"

Page 165-865 - "But though oftentimes neutralized, it is not unusual to find it employed in cooking in such a manner, and with so much liberality, as to leave an excess of alkali; in which case it has its full force on the living tissues and blood. Nor is soda much better than saleratus."

Score – Unverified

Why 133 – Baking Powder 2 (What 124) Baking powder damages the taste buds.

Page 415-2179 - "I know of none so successful in its deadly work (damaging the sense of taste) as saleratus (baking powder).”

Score - Unverified

Score – Minor

Why 134 – Preserved Foods (What 125) Preserved foods are hard to digest.

Page 149-779 - "the same things which tend to render these and other substances indestructible, external to the human body, tend to render them at the same time indestructible within the body." (781) - "One grand objection to pickles, is that they are so changed by vinegar, salt, or such other applications, as have been used for their preservation, as to resist chymification, and even solution."

Score – Unverified

Vacuum sealed and cooling is a better means of preserving food.

Page 150-788 - "meats both cooked and uncooked have been preserved for years in a tolerable condition by merely removing the air from them, and hermetically sealing the vessels containing them. They may also be kept, for a considerable time, without change, in ice houses."

Comment – Even though this is not the identical method of preservation as used by Ellen White, it expresses a correct principle that there are safe methods of preservation.

Score – Significant

What 127 – Spices W 51 R 15 G 47 C 56 J 67 K 75

Spices are all poisonous. If they are used they should be put on after cooking.

Appendix 4 - The Laws of Health

William A Alcott

Page 167-875 - "Our mustard, pepper, vinegar, and almost all our condiments or seasonings of the aromatic or biting kind, …. in reality, they are slowly poisoned."

Page 172-897 - "Seasoning for food, if applied at all, should never be applied till the food is on the table."

Score – Minor

Why 135 – Spices 1 (What 127) Spices are in fact drugs.

Page 167-875 - "Our mustard, pepper, vinegar, and almost all our condiments or seasonings of the aromatic or biting kind, are neither more nor less than medicines, and our children are early Mithridated by them. In other words, they seem to be hardened to their use,"

Score - Unverified

Why 136 – Spices 2 (What 127)

Spices pass into the blood undigested and affect the circulation.

Page 221-1148 - " other substances of an irritating of poisonous character, ..... mustard, pepper, spices, saleratus, and the like..... These are exceedingly injurious to the circulating apparatus,.....

These substances are never digested, but are carried with rapidity into the circulation."

Score - Unverified

Why 137 – Spices 3 (What 127) Spices at first make us warmer.

Page 213-1108 – “mustard, pepper, and spices; …. They doubtless make us a little warmer for the time, ...The final or remote influence of all these is unfavorable."

Score - Unverified

Why 138 – Spices 4 (What 127)

Spices when eaten get into and irritate the skin.

Page 301-1571 - "(Things when eaten) lodge in the skin, and of course irritate it. And the irritation greatly disturbs it in the performance of its functions." (1574) - "Among the substances of this latter are …. spices."

Score - Unverified

Why 139 – Spices 5 (What 127)

Some spices can blister the skin, so they must have an even worse effect on the alimentary canal. Page 303-1579 - "The contents (from mustard, saleratus, and pepper) of the human stomach, at the close of many a modern meal, thus applied, would inevitably result in a blister. (if applied on the arm) And is the interior of the stomach and alimentary canal less delicate and irritable than the exterior surface of the body?"

Comment – The lining of the stomach resists hydrochloric acid and is well able to resist spices.

Score - Unverified

What 128 – Sugar W 49 R 13 (C 54) J 65 K 80

Sugar is dangerous, especially if eaten alone or in large quantities.

Page 169-882 - "When (sugar) taken separately from our meals, and even with them, in any considerable quantity, (it is dangerous)

Score – Significant

Appendix 4 - The Laws of Health

William A Alcott

Why 140 – Sugar (What 128)

Sugar produces a foulness of the stomach, heat and thirst.

Page 169-882 - "these substances (sugar) undoubtedly impair the tone of the stomach, and produce what we are accustomed to call foulness of that organ...... Now, that can hardly be healthy food which produces, almost immediately, so much heat and thirst."

Score - Unverified

What 129 – Refined Foods W 28 G 43 C 32 J 54 K77

Refined foods are not as healthy as whole unprocessed foods.

Page 139-730 - "refine our sugar, bolt and sift our meal, refine into cheese out of milk, extract our farinas, etc. ... the whole paraphernalia of modern over-refined cookery."

Page 170-888 - "Beside it is always hazardous to separate things which God has so obviously joined together. Thus it is wrong, in the very face of things, to separate the bran from the flour, for both are needed. So the farina, or starch, or sugar, from the substance which contain them. So again, the butter and cheese from milk, in which God of Nature has placed them. Let both alike received, or alike rejected."

Score – Significant

Why 141 – Refined Foods (What 129)

Non-nutritious foods are needed for the combustion in the lungs.

Page 140-732 - "A portion of that which is wholly innutritious, so far as the formation of blood is concerned, is as useful in the daily economy of the system as pure nutriment. A part of what we receive is needed for combustion in the lungs, as the chemist call it."

Score – Unverified

What 130 - Mixing Foods W 29 G 71 C 55 (J 52)

Mixing of different foods is bad for the health.

Page 148-774 - "Mixed dishes are not only objectionable, but (so are) mixed meals. An ordinary meal, ..... is but a huge mince pie, when it reaches the stomach."

Page 146-763 - "It is said by Dr. Dunglison..... that every made dish of food is more or less rebellious. ... Made dishes for him, are mixed dishes. Even the addition of milk to the farmer's bread is objectionable in a slight degree; but so numerous and so much worse are hundreds of our mixtures,"

Score - Unverified

Why 142 – Mixing Foods (What 130)

Mixing foods causes the production of poisons.

Page 185-965 - "One danger to which we are liable, in making up our mixtures of various sorts of food which are unlike each other, is that of bringing into play new chemical affinities, whose results may, for anything most housekeepers can know, be virulent poison. Such things as this have happened a thousand times, and have resulted, many time, in the loss of health and life."

Score - Unverified

Page 32-168 - "(There are problems with those who) have eaten large or very large unwholesome suppers."

Appendix 4 - The Laws of Health

William A Alcott

Page 96-501 - "In short, there is very great reason for believing that abstinence from the last meal of the day, especially if it comes at a late hour, whether that meal is the third, fourth, or fifth, will do more to insure sound and healthy sleep than all the drugs and medicines"

Score – Minor

Why 143 – Large Suppers (What 131) Eating before bed causes fever.

Page 32-168 – Fever is more or less apparent…. in those .... who have set up late at night, or have eaten large or very large unwholesome suppers."

Score – Unverified

Comment – This is an overstatement, but unprocessed food do give better long-term health.

Score - Minor

Page 111-579 - "Such are fat meats, butter, and other oily matters, preserved substances of every kind, hard boiled eggs, mince pies, pie crust, rich sauces, hard cooked custards, pancakes, dough nuts, short cake, fritters, and the like.

Comment – Most are high fat foods and are better not eaten in large quantities. Hard boiled eggs and hard cooked custard are no different to the softer varieties. His statement here contrasts with his inclusion of flesh foods to obtain the fat.

Score – Significant

Why 144 – Unhealthy Foods (What 133) Unhealthy foods are hard to digest.

Page 111-579 - "Some kinds of food, moreover, which are soluble, are indigestible, at least, by debilitated stomachs. Such are fat meats, butter, and other oily matters, preserved substances of every kind, hard boiled eggs, mince pies, pie crust, rich sauces, hard cooked custards, pancakes, dough nuts, short cake, fritters, and the like. These, not being digested, in whole or in part, refuse to enter the lacteals."

Comment – It is not because they are slow to digest that high fats foods are a health risk.

Score – Unverified

Why 145 – Exciting Foods (What 133)

Foods that cause an increase in saliva flow cause thirst and intemperance.

Page 105-547 - "Too rapid flow of saliva, whether induced by highly exciting food, by tobaccochewing, or in any other manner, is also apt to be followed by, in the end by thirst. Hence one reason why exciting food and tobacco lead to intemperance."

Score - Unverified

Why 146 – Eyes (What 133)

Foods that are not plain and simple damage the eyes and heat the blood.